Mr & Mrs Smith introduces high def video

Boutique hotel directory Mr & Mrs Smith, which last month scooped the Travolution Awards 2010 travel brand of the year accolade, has taken its first step into online video.

Boutique hotel directory Mr & Mrs Smith, which last month scooped the Travolution Awards 2010 travel brand of the year accolade, has taken its first step into online video.


For launch high-definition video clips have been recorded at 10 London hotels including the Baglioni, The Gore and the Soho Hotel, featuring interviews with owners, chefs and concierges.


Tamara Heber-Percy, Mr & Mrs Smith’s chief technical officer, said although the firm was not necessarily at the “bleeding edge” of technological development it had to constantly evolve.


Other advances in the pipeline include a smartphone app that will be launched early next year and an upgrade of Mr & Mrs Smith’s booking platform.


To support its move into online video Mr & Mrs Smith has invested in its own in-house production team and expects it won’t be long before it sees a return through increased conversions for hotels with video.


Heber-Percy said although it is relatively early days for video online expanded bandwidths meant the time was right to for Mr & Mrs Smith to take the plunge.


This strategy of only innovating for the right reasons and at the right time has also underpinned its development of the firm’s first mobile app.


“We had not done it before because we hadn’t come up with idea for the mobile app. It needed to be Mr & Mrs Smith – I didn’t want to produce another application that’s just boring. We do not do things just to jump on a bandwagon.”


“We have that now – it’s quirky, is slightly sexy, it’s fun.”


For the full article see this month’s edition of Travolution which is themed on the 2010 Travolution Awards and which is published today (October 29).